New Video: Introducing the Playful Visuals and Soulful Sounds of French Electronic Music Producer and Artist FKJ

Vincent Fenton is a self-taught, Paris, France-based producer, multi-instrumentalist, electronic music artist and sound engineer, best known in electronic music circles as French Kiwi Juice — or FKJ. For Fenton, music has always been a part of his life somehow; but he can trace the origins of his musical career to when he started to write and compose songs at 13 and recorded his first track at 14 in his uncle’s studio. And with the release of his debut EP, 2013’s Time For A Change and its follow up EP, 2014’s Take Off, found the French producer, electronic music artist, multi-instrumentalist and sound engineer establishing himself in a contemporary electronic music scene that includes M83, Uppermost and others while developing an international profile with tours in Asia, North America, the rest of the EU and Australia; however, unlike his contemporaries Fenton has described his sound as being influenced by jazz and soul, while equally drawing from hip-hop and funk in a rather sophisticated and smooth fashion.

Interestingly, Fenton’s highly-anticipated self-titled FKJ full-length debut was released yesterday and the album’s latest single “Skyline” is a swaggering dance floor friendly yet soulful track that nods at Jamiroquai, The Chemical Brothers and The Crystal Method as Fenton pairs a slick and silky smooth production consisting of cosmic bursts of twinkling arpeggio keyboard, whirring and wheezing electronics, shuffling drum programming and a sinuous bass line paired with Fenton’s ethereal and dreamy falsetto and an equally slick yet understated hook.

The recently released accompanying video features a relatively simple concept — Fenton leading a small group of bicyclists, riding the sort of bikes Pee Wee Herman rode in Pee Wee’s Big Adventurethrough an extremely European and gothic-looking forest at sunrise and dusk with Fenton singing the song as he’s riding with his crew.

William Ruben Helms

I'm a music blogger, critic and photographer, who has had articles and photos published in The New York Press, New York Magazine's Vulture Blog, Ins&Outs Magazine, The Noise Beneath the Apple, Glide Magazine, The Whiskey Dregs Magazine and others.